fractal says - an unpredictable map type
shuffle says - randomly creats a...

so arent they both shuffle maps?

I think shuffle randomly chooses from Archipelago, Continents, Pangaea, and Fractal.

I think shuffle randomly chooses from Archipelago, Continents, Pangaea, and Fractal.

and what does fractal do?

I think fractal uses its own map creation script

fractal is a random map generation. for example you can have tundra and snow in the middle of the map, i think. rivers are the only semi logical thing in fractal.

fractal is a random map generation. for example you can have tundra and snow in the middle of the map, i think. rivers are the only semi logical thing in fractal.

and the type of the map can be any of the pther types? pangea, terra, continents, and all the rest?

You don't get tundra and snow near the equator in Fractal. You just get a wide variety of terrain. You won't see a Pangea situation with Fractal; you might see 6 people on one continent, 3 on another, and two people each with their own. Continents are long and snaky oftentimes.

Fractal is completely unpredictable. Shuffle may be unpredictable or may have islands, continents, or one landmass.

Still, I cant understand the difference!

I think shuffle switches between continents, pangaea and archipelago whereas fractal has its own random map generator. Fractal rarely has pangaea type maps and favors continents and also likes to isolate players from time-to-time.

bumpity bump

Does fractal mess around with resources too? I'm playing a huge fractal at the moment where the world is one large land mass in a T shape, plus two smaller land masses on either side. I'm on one of the smaller continents with Cyrus, and we have no horses, no spices, no sugar, no gems and no gold. Cyrus has the lone copper resource on the island, however I have a worldwide monopoly on Ivory (7!!!), deer and iron(!!!!!)

Fractal is random and based on "the beauty of mathematics" - check out the word fractal in Wikipedia, if you are more interested.